The Children’s Institute is a community-based organization in Rochester, NY, that partners with local agencies, schools and childcare centers to strengthen the social and emotional health of children in a variety of ways. Get Ready to GROW started in 2015 and provides developmental checks for children ages one to five years who are referred by their school district or childcare center. The program goes to schools and childcare centers to provide vision, hearing, dental, speech and language, thinking and reasoning, movement, social and emotional, and BMI screenings for approximately 1,500 children per year.
“By doing vision screenings with a tool like the Spot Vision Screener, we’re helping to give children in our community an advantage before they even start school.”
— Teresa Medero, Bilingual Navigator, Get Ready to GROW, Children’s Institute
Several community partners were involved in the development and implementation of Get Ready to GROW’s vision screening program. Colleagues at Goodwill Vision Enterprises recommended utilizing an instrument-based vision screener to help ensure staff would be able to complete a higher number of screenings vs. traditional chart-based visual acuity methods.1 The recommendation was based on the organization’s experience doing community-based vision screenings in busy environments such as schools and daycare centers.
Goodwill Vision Enterprises had successfully been using the Spot Vision Screener to detect the six risk factors of amblyopia, and the Children’s Institute agreed the device would be a good fit for the Get Ready to GROW program.
When the program was initiated in 2015, screenings were only performed on three-year-olds in Monroe County (where Rochester, NY, is located). Due to growing needs in the community, the program expanded to include screenings on children ages one to five in 2020 and then to provide services in the surrounding Finger Lakes region, for a total of more than 125 zip codes, in 2021.
To accommodate the growing volume of screenings performed, the Children’s Institute has now acquired ten Spot Vision Screeners. The busiest time for Get Ready to GROW is in the fall, to meet the New York State requirement that all students entering Pre-K or Kindergarten receive a school vision screening.
Get Ready to GROW screeners use the Spot Vision Screener to complete vision screenings on the populations of children they work with. “Vision screenings with the Spot Vision Screener are as simple as taking a photo,” says Teresa Medero, Bilingual Navigator/Get Ready to GROW, Children’s Institute. “Sometimes we say to the child, ‘Your eyes are so pretty, let me take a picture of them!’ as a way to have them sit still. Within a few seconds, the screening is complete.”
Staff perform screenings on children as young as one year old, who cannot yet identify shapes or letters on a traditional wall chart. Staff also work with children whose first language is not English. The Spot Vision Screener allows staff to complete screenings on these children with minimal cooperation required from the child.2
“We do need the child to sit still for at least a few seconds to complete the vision screening,” continues Medero. “But our screeners will often have the child sit on a teacher’s lap if they are too squirmy.” Staff often don’t have control over the space provided for screenings in the schools and daycare centers they visit, and the lighting can pose a potential challenge, according to Medero. “Sometimes we can’t block enough daylight in the room to complete a screening,” says Medero. “In those cases, we’ll try to find a different room in that facility where the light sensitivity is not an issue.”
“Using the Spot Vision Screening is very simple compared to some of the other equipment our team uses to perform our screenings,” says Medero. Get Ready to GROW screeners can complete screenings quickly and the result screen is easy to understand, so it’s very clear if the child needs to be referred for follow-up care.
The team uses the lights and sounds the device emits to engage the child to complete the screening. “We’ll ask the child if they can find the bird when they are listening to the chirping sound, and that gets them to sit still just long enough for us to complete the screening,” says Medero.
Get Ready to GROW created a video to train its screeners on how to use the Spot Vision Screener. The Children’s Institute has interns working with the Get Ready to GROW program, and the vision screening is often one of the first screenings they perform because the Spot Vision Screener is so easy to use.
“Because we perform developmental checks on children up to the age of five, intervention is available for the child earlier, helping them be more prepared to start school.”
— Teresa Medero, Bilingual Navigator/Get Ready to GROW, Children’s Institute
As of 2025, the Get Ready to GROW program has performed vision screenings on 6,484 children since its start in 2015. The percentage of children referred for follow-up care due to the detection of a vision disorder risk factor has ranged from 11 to 16% over the past five school years.
The vision screenings offered by the Children’s Institute can lead to the early detection of vision disorders, which is crucial to help preserve vision. In addition to preserving vision, there are additional benefits associated with academic success and positive social-emotional behavior in the classroom.
“Because we perform screenings on children before they start school, intervention is available for the child earlier, helping them be more prepared when they start school,” says Medero. Oftentimes, vision disorders have no noticeable symptoms and children may not realize they see the world differently than others. It is important for parents, teachers and other caregivers to watch for signs of a potential vision disorder, such as squinting, holding objects close to their face, or closing or covering one eye.
“A child may not realize they have a vision issue and having someone recognize the signs may be the only way the child can get a screening and then intervention, if needed,” says Medero.
On average, 50% of the children screened as part of the Children’s Institute Get Ready to GROW program get referred for further evaluation for at least one service. Over the life of the program — that’s more than 7,000 children who have been identified to receive early interventional services for vision, hearing, speech and language, thinking and reasoning, and more.
“Our team is grateful that we can provide development checks for children in our area,” says Medero. “There are children who can potentially get lost in the shuffle. A parent may be yelling at a child, not realizing they have a hearing issue, or a teacher may be struggling with a child’s behavioral challenges in the classroom, not knowing they have a vision issue that can impact their ability to stay focused.”
The Children’s Institute is proud of the work the Get Ready GROW team provides in the Finger Lakes region. “By doing vision screenings with a tool like the Spot Vision Screener that provides fast and accurate results on whether a child needs to be referred for follow-up care, helping to give children in our community an advantage before they even start school,” says Medero.
For more information about Get Ready to GROW:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (585) 295-1008; Fax: (585) 295-1090
Visit www.GetReadyToGROW.org
References
1. Modest, Jonathan R., Katherine M. Majzoub, Bruce Moore, Vijeta Bhambhani, Sarah R. McLaughlin, and Louis Vernacchio. “Implementation of Instrument-Based Vision Screening for Preschool-Age Children in Primary Care.” Pediatrics 140, no. 1 (July 2017): e20163745.https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-3745.
2. Cotter, S. A., Cyert, L. A., Miller, J. M., & Quinn, G. E. for the National Expert Panel to the National Center for Children’s Vision and Eye Health. (2015). Vision screening for children 36 to <72 months: Recommended practices. Optometry and Vision Science, 92(1), 6-16.
Baxter, Hillrom, Spot and Welch Allyn are trademarks of Baxter International Inc. or its subsidiaries.
US-FLC158-250087 (v1.0) 12/2025
